


Valentine's Spy

by Ninjaninaiii



Category: Skyfall (2012) - Fandom, Whitechapel (TV)
Genre: M/M, Valentine's Day, kent's MI6 and deep under cover, that doesn't stop him from crushing hard
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-04-01
Packaged: 2018-03-12 22:34:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3357722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ninjaninaiii/pseuds/Ninjaninaiii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emerson Kent, recent MI6 recruit is positioned in Whitechapel Police, deep undercover. Everything is okay until he discovers a crush.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Happy ((((belated shhh)))) valentine's to all you whitechapel people (all 3 of you hahha) I love you lots <3 
> 
> This was written in about... 3 hours? I apologise for the cruddy writing haha!

Kent spends his first day trying to ignore the very obvious cooing noises that erupt every time he moves. The first few times, he thinks maybe he’s imagining it, the way breaths hush every time he ruffles his curls, the way soft noises fill the air when he smiles and can feel his dimple dimple. The defining moment is when his new boss pats him on the head and places a mug of tea on his desk. He can feel all of the eyes in the room train on them, and he decides why not put on a show?

He sighs as he picks the mug up and sniffs it, then acts repulsed, nearly shoving it off the desk with a too-excessive movement. “Earl Grey? You know I won’t touch the stuff, Q.” He leans back in his seat, defiant, and something cold shifts in Q’s eyes until it clicks what Kent is doing and a tight smile tugs on a corner of his lip.

“You’re quite right, I have no idea what came over me.” Q took the mug for himself and sipped, eyebrows raising over the rim. “Coffee, wasn’t it? Black, no sugar?”

Something childish slipped into Kent’s voice as he agreed with a “Mmmhm,” watching Q leave for the kitchen again, and a tide of hushed whispers swept over the Q-branch floor. He heard the definite phrase ‘star-crossed lovers’ and spluttered, chair slamming down from where he’d been balancing on its hind legs.

Q must’ve heard the inquisical statement too because he slams the mug down with just a little bit too much force, features schooled into a very serious expression, looking like he’s trying too hard not to crack and laugh. “Made with love.”

“Since when did you make anything not mechanical with love?”

“Oh ha, ha, very funny, E. I could have you fired on your first day.”

Kent rolls his eyes and curses the day he’d decided to heed Q’s advice in following him into espionage. But he supposes he can put up with whispered rumours better than ‘aww’s, so let them talk while he’s in the office. In a week’s time he’ll be posted deep under cover, and he won’t have to deal with them for years, if all goes well.

\---

When Kent arrives at Q branch for his second day, there’s a steaming cup of black liquid waiting for him on his desk. He’s not late, but the office is already teeming with activity and he makes a mental note to arrive half an hour earlier tomorrow morning. Depositing bag and coat by his chair, he takes the mug to a smug-looking Q, who is standing at his podium and switching between complex-looking maps, though Kent knows him well enough to suss out that Q is just doing it for show, to look hyper-vigilant before he’s quite woken up. It is only eight AM after all.

“You’re the actual devil, Q.”

“I don’t know what you mean, E.”

Kent pouts, and yeah, okay, this might be his fault a little bit, but really can you blame a man for exploiting something he has? “You know I hate black coffee.” He can hear the room fake-silence, people still acting as if they’re milling about in a morning routine, but he has the distinct feeling he can hear the word ‘rhubarb’ being repeated under breaths.

“Well, if you’re going to use your dearest brother in your workroom charades, a polite tip would’ve been nice. I can’t have you making me seem inadequate in my own branch.”

Kent tries not to smile at the muffled “brothers?” from the back of the room, and now his colleagues are openly gawping. “I can see it,” one of them says, screwdriver in one hand, partially defused bomb in the other. “He’s like- a grumpier, more compact version.”

“What did we do to deserve two of the curly bastards?” Someone wails, eliciting a laugh from most of the room. “Please tell me this one won’t openly flirt with field agents too?”

“I do not ‘openly flirt’, thank you,” Q chastises, shoulder squaring slightly, looking to Kent like a bird ruffling his feathers. “I believe you all have work to be getting on with, now that your little rumour factory has been vanquished.”

“Hey E, are you older or younger?” the first voice calls, and Kent can see Q rolling his eyes. “My little brother also has work to be doing, I believe. And if anyone else DMs me to ask if he’s single I’ll have the lot of you on field duty for a week.”

Tittering voices settle down as Kent returns to his desk, cheeks flushed. This was not the environment he expected to come in to from the Academy, where it was stone-faces and stone-hearts for years on end. He wasn’t like Q in that his skills had been recognised and put to immediate use, promotions upon promotions until he became head of a branch barely out of his teens. Kent had applied for and was studying in the police force until someone had told him he was on track to becoming an agent for MI6.

He still didn’t know if it had been Q who had made that happen. He’d thought Q had been hired as a senior executive in a multi-billion-dollar technology company, hadn’t known anything about spies until he became one. It was a strange life. Their mother thought they both worked for Apple, Q a developer, Kent a bodyguard.

Besides the coffee on the desk this morning is a manila folder, and Kent opens it cautiously. Yesterday had been a day of bureaucracy, filling in form after form, and this was concerningly similar to the torment he’d had to put up with only hours ago.

What greets him instead is a mission brief. “Whitechapel police?” he reads under his breath. He wonders if Q has the entirety of MI6 bugged, or if it’s just this room, because his brother calls over to him, not looking away from his fervent typing.

“Looks like Police school wasn’t a waste of time, E. They’re stationing you there to observe some cases. You’ll be a Detective Constable, fresh out of school, bottom of the pile. Should be easy enough.”

“How long do you think I’ll be there?” Kent asks, the project seeming daunting. The brief is literally just that, to wait and watch and listen until new orders come in, and he’s not sure how to take that. It’s hardly the line-of-fire duty he’d been training for the last few years. Whitechapel may not be the snazziest part of London, but it was not war-zone either.

“It’s hard to tell with these things. Could be a couple of months, could be your whole life, short or long, I’m afraid.” A whole life was a pretty long time. Especially to an agent barely twenty five.

“Oh.”

“Having second thoughts?” Q asks, and his voice is suddenly very near, right behind Kent, a hand on his shoulder. Some agent, he couldn’t even notice his own brother sneaking up on him. Kent shook his head, fingering the folder. Whitechapel. He hoped it would be interesting.

\----

His initial reaction is that he doesn’t like the Whitechapel police very much. They’re grubby, they’re coarse, and they have no qualms acting out the stereotypical jocks-at-work routine he’d been warned about. Kent knew he had a baby face, and that most of these men had been serving for at least ten years, if not decades more, so he had no right to complain, but oh, if they only knew who he was… how special he was. It made being the glorified tea-boy all the little bit more agonising.

They went through DIs in days too, most of the (middle-aged, white, verging on upper-class) men breezing through before they’d had a chance to unpack their boxes. They’d crack one case, take DS Miles’ credit and be off yachting in time for the sunset. They DI would walk out of the office to a chorus of ‘twat’s, and it didn’t take long for Kent to join in with the calls, because they were. They were corrupt, entitled wankers, and at least this way he could stave off some of the loneliness in being the ‘baby’ of the team.

It didn’t take long to assimilate either, and before long he wouldn’t have thought anything strange of rocking up to work in last night’s jeans and a hoodie, dining on take-away meals pretty much every night with Fitzgerald, Sanders, McCormack and the lot. They solved cases, sure, but they were mostly domestics, and he got good at being able to spot a husband’s grip around a throat. It was grim, boring, and Kent was so much more. But he couldn’t complain, filed paperwork for both Whitechapel and MI6 and went home at night to more take-aways and his guitar.

Chandler was just another one of the stereotype until he asked for the chalk, and none of the other officers deigned to help. Kent recognised that this was his time to shine as errand-boy, to show off his true skills. It was quite the performance, rolled eyes and all, and he was quite prepared to share an obscene gesture with the boys behind Chandler’s back until he was graced with an honest to god grateful smile and a nod of thanks. It was potentially the first time someone had thanked him for a task for months, if not years, and how quick it went to Kent’s heart.

From there it didn’t take much for him to fall. He found himself pining, hard, which took the edge off of the years he spend following Chandler around. He was technically doing his job, right? He was watching. Listening. Intently. He was paying attention. Nobody could fault him for doing his job. They could, perhaps, fault him for nearly dying of heart failure when Chandler did as little as smile at him, or wish him a good job well done, but they could take their complaints elsewhere.

He is injured in the line of duty nearly two years into his operation when investigating the Krays and Q was so close to terminating not only E’s mission but the Krays, the Whitechapel police, and anyone who so much as brushed against Kent in the subsequent weeks, but even the thought of returning to more thrilling operations no longer appealed to Kent. He had Chandler, he had a job he enjoyed (most of the time), and he had friends. A routine. Something most agents never got, no matter how hard they tried to wine and dine on a mission. He wanted to live this life for as long as possible before being moved into another.

It took hours of skyping to calm Q down enough after the first attack, Kent’s striping, that the second, the more emotional, the stunt pulled by the corrupt officers at the office nearly ended in the arson of dozens of police officer's houses. Kent’s suspension had half of MI6 up in arms, an army of attached agents craving blood for the dishonour placed on their child’s head. Q had seen how Kent had been violently upset that time, heartbreakingly so, and so had sent the agents packing, had simmered down his own anger, had set it aside to care for his distraught baby brother.

Kent didn’t know whether it was better or worse when, days later and sitting in Buchan’s kitchen with an apologetic Chandler, the older man had put down his glass, stared into Kent’s eyes and said: “Out of everyone, I trust you the most. You have no hidden agenda, Emerson, and I appreciate that. I appreciate you. You bring truth to the team. I honestly mean that.”

\---

Another couple of years and Kent still hasn’t progressed with Chandler, Chandler has had a series of love interests, and the feeling that Kent should have up and quit years ago gets thicker and darker in his mind until it’s all he can think about for hours at a time. He had the opportunity after the Kray case, he could have returned to international espionage. He might have been a double oh agent. Could have been working with his brother. Instead he had been feeding his crush and ‘settling’ for things, settling for his DC job at Whitechapel, settling for being just another one of the guys at work.

Morgan happens and Kent’s sure he has a tangible aura of darkness encircling him the entire time he spends at the office brooding. If Riley and Mansell’s reactions are anything to go by, they it’s not just his imagination. Riley keeps asking if he’s okay, and Mansell’s jokes about Erica tone down. (He can’t believe Q allowed Mansell to start dating Erica. He’s still nonplussed about that.)

And  then, just when things couldn’t possibly get any worse, a woman professing herself to be ‘Stella Knight’ waltzes into the office and gives Kent a cheery smile. He’s lucky it’s lunch break and he’s alone in the room (or had she planned it this way?) because she drops a file on his desk and makes an exaggerated winking gesture. “Holding up nicely, E?”

“Yeah, thanks. What’s a 00 doing around these parts?” he asks, cautious, because this is the first time he’d been ‘checked up on’ in years, and by the infamous lady in red too. It didn’t mean good tidings.

“Well, a little birdy has info on an agent gone rogue around these parts. You won’t know him, went off the books years before your time, but we want him quiet.” Kent nods. It’s finally time. It’s finally a reason for his years-long mission. Maybe at the end of it all, he’ll have the chance to get out of here. To clear his head in tropical countries, shooting shot glasses off of girls’ heads to curry favour with evil masterminds.

Except he doesn’t. It ends and Kent finds himself asking Chandler for a drink rather than for an extended leave form. He had planned on telling Chandler that he needed some time off, to rethink his career, that he’d been traumatised, perhaps win a parting kiss out of it all, but he’d stalled and somehow it ended up sounding like a date, and Chandler had replied with an “I’d love to,” as if he really would love to, as if it really was a date.

\----

Three months later and Kent hadn’t brought up the idea of going for drinks again. He was sat at his desk, watching Riley aim scrunched up paper balls into a waste paper bin when his computer dinged, drawing his attention. The screen was blank though, and Kent frowned. He glanced at where Mansell was laughing at something on his own screen. “Very funny, Mansell.”

Mansell frowned, eyes tearing from his monitor with a raised eyebrow. “You what mate?” Kent’s computer made another noise, one Kent recognised but couldn’t place, and Mansell shrugged. “Not me, mate, I’m doing Valentine’s shopping.” He turned the screen to show his amazon basket piled high, and as if to exemplify his innocence, his speakers produced the sound and Mansell jumped back, wheely chair sliding him far from his desk. “What the fuck?”

Riley’s attention piqued, she turned her own computer’s sound up and was awarded the sound for herself. “Do you think it’s one of those virus things? My son just got rid of one from his laptop, cost us a bloody fortune…”

“If it is, I know someone who can fix it,” Kent sighed. The last thing he wanted right now was to have the head of MI6’s technology finding out that Whitechapel police still used computers from 2003. “Do it for free, too.”

“This that brother of yours? Yeah Erica said he was some fancy Apple guy, right?”

“Oh really?” Riley asked, virus instantly forgotten. “You don’t think he could get me a discount, would you? Cheeky to ask, I know, but you know what kids are like, always asking for the newest gadgets…”

Talking about Q in a place like this got Kent’s hackles raising, and just the mention of his brother made the sound sound… distractingly familiar. “Uh, yeah, I guess. He’s not really… in that department, though. I dunno, I’ll ask him.”

Riley grinned. “Ta, darling. Gosh it’s nice having family in high places, isn’t it.” Riley looked like she was going to say more, until her computer’s sound turned itself up and Ravel’s Bolero started chanting from her speakers. The three of them startled at the sound of orchestral music filling the room, and Riley made small noises of indignance. “It won’t turn down,” she cried, clicking furiously and glancing at Chandler’s office. “Oh no, oh no, I can’t do it, Kent, honey, help me out.”

As Kent stood, the music dimmed itself, and damn it, he had a bad feeling about this… As if to answer his thoughts, heavy men, black suits and ties, blond hair cropped close to their heads filed into the room. Each was more intimidating than the last and Riley and Mannsell yelped, closing in on one another and pressing back towards Chandler’s office, just as the man himself stepped out of it.

“What… what’s going on out here?” Chandler asked, trying to look intimidating before the crowd of too-similar men. Kent just sunk back into his seat, which drew Chandler’s attention. “Kent? Do you know who these men are?”

Kent nodded, glancing at the calendar, then at the clock. This was the last time he ignored a threat from his brother-come-boss. He counted to three and as if by magic, a final man sporting tailored suit and blond hair cropped close, face scraggy but ‘chiselled’ and attractive, eyes clear as ice walked in with the swagger to rival the elite. He also held a bouquet of alarmingly perfect roses, which was placed in front of Kent with a smile, a lick of the lips and a “Kent.”

“Bond,” Kent greeted, prying his eyes open but not daring to look over at Chandler. “I’m fairly sure you’ve got the wrong desk. We may look alike, but I’m fairly sure my brother wouldn’t appreciate this kind of infidelity.”

Bond gave him an amused smirk, the one that really riled Kent. He didn’t know how Q put up with the man’s incessant smirking. Really. “I’m just a messenger, I’m afraid. And these were only a side mission.” Hands now empty of the roses, Bond adjusted his sleeve, turning to face the three on the other side of the room who had gone stock still, trying to decode their conversation for clues as to what was going on.

“I take it, you’re Chandler?” Bond asked, closing in on the man while Riley and Mansell took a step back towards their own desks.

Chandler nodded, quirking an eyebrow first at Bond, then at Kent. “Joseph Chandler. I do believe we’ve not had the pleasure of meeting before,” he said, offering his hand.

“James Bond,” the agent replied, shaking with a firm grip.

“Well, Mr. Bond, I will have to give you a warning, February fourteenth or not, I cannot accept… suitors and romantic gestures in my office.” Chandler’s face descended into disapproving, taking in Kent as well as Bond. Kent wanted to read jealousy in the expression, but Kent was Kent, the look could very well be homophobia for all he knew. “We treat all of our employees with-”

“You can save your fair rights stuff, I’m his brother’s partner, I don’t want anything to do with him.” Bond glanced over his shoulder. “No offence.”

Kent waved him off with a small “none taken.”

“The roses are for him to give to you,” Bond said once his attention was back on Chandler and he smiled. “Season’s greetings.” With that, the agents who’d stood silently around the room, checking for liabilities disappeared, leaving Bond to turn on his heel and open the entrance door for a new man to walk in.

“Oh god.” Kent buried his head in his hands. The roses were bad enough, they’d sent Chandler into a fit of flustered blushes, but this… this was going to be agony.

“Em,” Q greeted on his way past, and Kent emitted a faint ‘ugh’ sound. “Finlay, nice to finally meet you, I’m Em and Erica’s brother, Quentin.” Q held out a hand, which Mansell took and shook, bemused beyond belief. “I know, all this talk of the devil stuff, am I right?”

“Goddamnit, Q, I should’ve known the computers were you. Will you just leave me alone?”

“Trust me, E, you weren’t the only one with a slow day at the office.” Q adjusted his cardigan, the mustard yellow fabric riding up slightly. “And you’re Megan? It’s so nice to meet you, Em’s told me all about you. I hope it’s not too forward, but I sent a few Iphones your children’s way, Sixes, top of the range.”

“Oh,” Riley breathed. “You look so much like your brother…” she glanced between the two of them, shocked, confused, not really keeping up, but shook her head, recovering fast. “I mean, where are my manners. It’s nice to know the Kent family is all so kind, isn’t that right, Mansell?” Mansell nodded his agreement.

“You flatter me,” Q said, preening. Kent rolled his eyes. Q always did like making an entrance. “Now then,” he said, voice chilling a couple of shades. “Chandler, Joe, was it?” He strode a couple of steps forwards, assessing the man top to bottom. “Well, I do say it’s uncanny, don’t you think, Bond?”

“Quite,” Bond agreed. “Though I think a smattering of stubble would complete the look.”

“Down to the three-piece suit, too,” Q wondered aloud. “I’m very impressed, Em. He’s everything you said he was.”

Kent went back to simmering in his own juices, burning from cheeks to ears. “I’m sorry I called you a good-for-nothing, Q. You know I love you really. Please stop.”

“Uhm, may I ask what… all this is about?” Chandler tried, addressing anyone who would listen.

“Oh yes, I do apologize.” Q slipped a tablet from an inner pocket he’d sewn into his jumper himself, flicking through some files. “This really has been a long time coming, I’m afraid, but you know how it is, work starts to pile up, criminals go missing and all that…” Q was an uncomfortably close distance to Chandler now, eyes speeding through the lines of text on his machine. “Blah blah… Ah! There we go.” He looked up from his tablet, used one hand to readjust his glasses and smiled, lips thin and cold. “You have one minute to give three reasons as to why Bond here shouldn’t shoot you for making our dear Kent cry.”

“What?!” Kent stood, chair clattering back. “Oi, Q, stop. I could humour you for the roses, for Bond, but this is too far.”

Q ignored him, focus still intent on Chandler.

Chandler gulped, eyes searching Q’s face, frown deepening. He looked like he wanted to make a run for his tiger balm. He considered something for a second, his jaw working, before he turned to Kent, pushing past Q and coming to a rest before Kent’s desk. “...I made you cry?”

“I-” Kent bit his lip. “That’s not the point, the point is, my brother has gone too far, and I am truly sorry, Sir, this is just his stupid idea for a joke, and he should really get out of this office before I- I- I do something that I will definitely regret once Bond enacts his vengeance.”

“When?” Chandler asks, quietly, eyes sincere, trying to lock Kent’s into his.

“Three times,” Q says from behind him, and Chandler’s frown deepens. “Once when you suspended him. Once when you chose a Miss Morgan Lamb over him. And once when-”

Q is cut off by Kent’s hurried shushing. “Q. I’m serious. Get out. This isn’t funny anymore.”

“I’m just trying to help you out, E. He may be aesthetically appealing, but we want you to realise how untrustworthy he will be. We’ve been analysing his files, and honestly, we cannot recommend that you-”

Once again, Q is cut off. “I trust him, Q!” Kent pushes past Chandler to get to his brother, Bond be damned. He’s still a couple of inches shy of eye level with Q, which never sat well with Kent. He’d always been referred to as ‘Bambi’ in their family, doe eyes and charming smile knocking years off of his age, and he’d hoped to have the same kind of growth spurt Q had had. “I trust him. With my life. With everything. He’s a good DI, he’s a good friend. You know what that means.”

“It means you got attached to your mission.”

“Mission?” Chandler asks, but is ignored.

“It means that I love him, Q.”

The world goes too silent, and Kent’s face becomes the colour of bone. He’d just done that. He’d just confessed his feelings in a fight with his brother. In front of his crush. In an office focussed entirely on him. His eyes closed and he clenched his fists. “Sorry. Excuse me. I have to….” Kent opened his eyes, feeling the tears welling in them, and made a break for the door.

“E!” Q called out, just too slow to catch Kent’s wrist. Bond looked expectantly at Q, preparing to run and catch him, but Q shook his head, turning to Chandler instead. “I’m-” Q sighed. “I apologise. That was wrong. I advise you go to Car park D, it’s where he goes when he doesn’t want to be found.”  

\---

Kent was a fucking idiot. He’d messed everything up by falling for a potential target, then he’d rejected chance after chance to get out, to move on, and then he’d incurred his stubborn brother’s wrath, had joked about spending his 30th Valentine’s alone, again, when the object of his affections had so recently agreed to drinks.

He hiccuped, and god, that was just great, he was a sobbing mess in the car park of a police station. What happened to ultra-cool, jet-setting super spies? Maybe he just wasn’t cut out for the job.

“Kent?” comes the all-too familiar voice and Kent startles, wiping eyes and nose of as much fluid as possible. This was not ideal. At all.

“I’m sorry,” Kent breaths when he knows Chandler is close enough to hear. “That… this… isn’t professional… at all, and I’m sorry, I really am… I’ll… I’ll ask for a transfer… straight away…”

“Do you enjoy working here? In Whitechapel?”

The question takes him unawares and Kent shrugs, tears uncontrollable. “I- I dunno.”

A soft hand is placed on his shoulder and Kent rakes in a shaky breath, trying to calm himself so he can at least answer the damn questions. “I- I guess… I like working with… with Miles… and Riley, and… I guess Mansell when he’s not being a dick… and… and I like working with you... “

“Well then, why would you want to transfer?” Chandler asks, light, soft, steering clear of his interrogative voice.

“...Because of what I just… admitted, Sir. Because…” Kent knew he’d practically just yelled it not ten minutes ago, but now it was just them, stood in the middle of an abandoned parking lot, he couldn’t bring himself to say the words.

“Did you mean it?” Chandler asks, hand still on Kent’s shoulder and clenching slightly. “What you said?” Kent’s throat constricted, lump forming again, and he nodded, avoiding looking at Chandler.

“I can’t believe I’ve made you cry four times,” he says, under his breath, but audible enough for Kent to catch.

Kent laughed, self-deprecatingly, the sound no more than a huff of exhaled air.

“I thought you knew I loved you too.”

Kent regrets exhaling so much, because now he’s finding it hard to breath. “What?”

“I adore you, Kent. I have done for goodness knows. I thought you knew that. I thought… that time at Buchan’s, I thought that was you rejecting me.”

“Me? Rejecting… you?” Kent remembers the conversation, how Chandler had revealed how much he trusted Kent. Kent had laughed without meaning to, in Chandler’s face. He supposes that might not have been the appropriate reaction to have to someone opening their heart. He just couldn’t take it, the weight of concealing his true profession mixing with the sensation of too-much liquor.Kent shook his head, curls previously tucked behind his ears falling into his face.

“I adore you,” Chandler repeats, breathless himself, reaching out to tuck the stray locks back where they belonged. Kent searches Chandler’s expression for any trace of a lie, his training forcing him to look for clues in twitches, in small muscular pulls, in the darting of an eye, but there is none. Joseph Chandler is telling the truth.

Kent’s heart rate picks up as he realises, possibly extremely belatedly, how close Chandler’s face is to his, and his face heats. Chandler was leaning down, his forehead nearly pressed to Kent’s, and he beamed, pale skin flushing pink enough to mirror Kent. “May I kiss you?”

Kent nods, and ignores the chill he gets as he senses they’re being watched. Well, it’s not like Q wouldn’t find a way to watch somehow, so he might as well watch the show in person than through a hacked security camera.

Kent decides that maybe police work isn’t so bad. At least he saw Chandler more than once a blue moon. Q gets frustrated when he brings that up, though, so he doesn’t do it very often lest he evoke Q-branch’s wrath again.

No… he may have aspired to Bond’s high-paced, high-energy life, but he found he much preferred the dozy London office, the evidence room, making Chandler a cup of tea, just the way he liked it, and getting a kiss in return.

(Bond was miffed his first Valentine’s day with Q was ruined by the little brother, but whatever made Q happy, he supposed. Plus, this way, he managed to order Q some flowers without being discovered. He hated having a hacker as a boyfriend.)

  
  
  



	2. April

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A totally serious and definitely long chapter 2.

When James first met the younger brother, he nearly had a heart attack. He was nearly given a heart attack by one of Q's latest devises when his first question to the new recruit was "So, what's your opinion on three-ways?" 

E had never quite trusted Bond, though Bond was given the apparently family-patent 'up and down', the openly judgemental analysis that Q kept giving him, ending in a thumb's up, which was probably brother sign language for 'bit of a tosser, attractive to the point of twatishness, could do better, but has a good ass,' for all he knew.

Bond was actually pretty thankful that little brother had appeared in the ranks, because it meant Q had to disclose facts about himself that he had never so much as hinted at before. Like that his name was Quentin Kent. Quentin freaking Kent. Bond had had to excuse himself to the bathroom lest his laughter cost him an eye, handily lost in a lab-accident 'gone wrong'. 

Because though Quentin had first waved the name off as 'just another alias', the arrival of Chandler had meant E had needed tailing, and that Erica was easier to talk to... and neither E nor Q had told their families their true vocations, so family dinners (which he was finally invited to,) meant real names. 

Quentin Kent.

"Good morning Kentin," pause for effect, "Oh pardon me, sorry, Quentin, awfully hard those syllables." 

"That wouldn't be a problem, Mr. Bond, if you used my inital," Q bit.

"Excuse me Mr. Quent, this enormously important file needs your-" Bond was hit in the head by a rogue- Bond had expected a miniature helicopter, or a self-automated catapult, but no, he was being physically attacked by Q. Bond felt like he needed to document this moment, but knew anything digital would be deleted before it left the room, anything physical tracked down and all record of it burnt. 

Family dinner three, (a year into Bond's relationship with Q,) had been the first where all of Quentin's siblings had been sat around the table, and Bond nearly cried when he learnt their names. There was Erica of course, and Emerson, the twins being the youngest, with Quentin in the middle, but the twins that followed, the two eldest siblings, had been introduced as "Ericsson and Emma." 

"You mean to tell me that your parents honestly named you Erica, Emerson, Quentin, Ericsson and Emma?" Q had been halfway through taking his shirt off that night, which was probably the wrong time to bring it up, libido-wise, but really, could anyone blame Bond? 

"Yes yes, what a cruel trick of nurture," Q half-quoted. "Parents are cruel creatures."

"Oh I don't know, James Bond has quite the ring to it, I think."

"Quentin Kent," Q sighed, admittedly apparently unfazed by the conversation, judging by the kisses he was still giving. "Quentin. I don't even have a bloody name starting with 'E', rather ruins the effect, I think."

"You _are_ the only single amidst twins, perhaps if you hadn't eaten your twin-"

"-I didn't eat my twin, I have been a single entity since my conception, Bond-"

"-Well that head of yours is certainly big enough for two-" 

"-As well as other aspects of my anatomy you're so cruelly ignoring-" 

"Getting a bit cocky, aren't we?"

"You can say that again-"

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because there was 14 minutes of April fool's left and graeliwilwilberbutt decided to inspire me.


End file.
